When I give lectures to garden clubs I like to promote the eating of wild foods and Chickweed (Stellaria media) is one of my favorites to mention because it's so tasty and very good for you.

Here in East Texas it's growing like crazy and we're eating it up. Depicted below is last night's dinner: our own ground beef, seasoned and served over corn chips with fresh mozarella, a white sauce and garnished generously with chickweed. It was fantastic and almost all the ingredients were harvested or made on our land.

Wow...looks great to me! Chickweed grows here like crazy, pretty much invasive in certain areas of my garden; it especially loves some of my boxed beds. Although I've certainly done my share of grazing on chickweed each year I've never taken the time to use it in a great looking dish like ya'll have, Dave! Yummy!

Shoe (heading out to check on chickweed growing in the garden, for supper?)

I've heard you can eat it but I have always seen it as something to get rid of that invades many parts of my garden. I promise myself to try it this year as an edible.

It really does taste great, and so good for you! And it certainly is an invader but the good news about it is that it doesn't last long. So we allow it to take over and it's always gone by the time the growing season is in full swing.

That's another of its great qualities! It is a winter germinating plant and grows at a time that is acceptable to us...and then leaves the premises when the warm weather garden kicks in. What a great and polite "weed", eh?

Perfectly said! It is definitely most polite of all the weeds we have here.

I found a recipe for a sauce with garlic, olive oil, and chickweed. I'm going to make some for lunch and serve alongside eggs and buttered bread.

I am afraid ours is not so well behaved. It is one of the first weeds to germinate and creates a running battle that lasts all summer into frost.

I guess your cooler weather up your way treats chickweed too kindly, Oberon. NO fair, eh?


"garlic, olive oil, and chickweed"... Wow, some of the best good stuff you can eat. Enjoy!

Shoe

Horseshoe said:"garlic, olive oil, and chickweed"... Wow, some of the best good stuff you can eat.

A lot of people talk about eating chickweed... and whenever I've tasted it... One taste has been enuff.

If you discover a magic way of prep... that renders it edible... I'd totally give it a shot... there's an abundance of it hereabouts, and tilling it under simply increases it...

So far... the only moderately successful tactic... is to pull it carefully and get the entire root system... and then mulch with an inch or 2 of woodchips...

While you're at it... find a recipe for bittercress... Took a bite of that recently... upset my stomach... very similar to arugula... which I dislike...

I pick it and eat it right out of the yard.

stone, chickweed here is rather pleasant to taste, like a mellow lettuce or something. I wonder if you might be picking henbit or something that also tends to grow in chickweed areas? If so, yuck, I've tried it, too.

Shoe

I think chickweed tastes like a very mild spinach. Everyone who I've ever convinced to try it has told me they liked it. Shoe might be right - maybe you're tasting something else!

And now I know. The taco chip salad looked great! Santita's?

I think they were Santitas!

Santitas!? Darn, I thought they were home-grown, fresh from the garden. I declare. I thought ya'll might've set out seeds of Frito's corn chips, let them grow up to the size of tortilla chips, harvest and eat. After all, I grew the best crop of S'mores similar to that one year - planting miniature marshmallows as seed stock, side-dressing with Hershey's chocolate, and mulching with graham crackers. We harvested the best ready-to-eat S'mores you'll ever sink your incisors into! And on a hot day in August there was no need to roast the marshmallows over a camp fire. Simply delish! I think the Whitinger kids would love to designate a garden to S'more Farming.

Shoe (who's had a long day and should stop dreaming before he goes to bed, eh?)

Horseshoe said:stone, chickweed here is rather pleasant to taste, like a mellow lettuce or something. I wonder if you might be picking henbit or something that also tends to grow in chickweed areas?

I know the difference... Henbit smells too disgusting to even put in my mouth...


henbit

chickweed

Green Deane has recipes on his site:
http://www.eattheweeds.com/chi...


Want to be grotesqued out? Here's a site that suggests eating houttuynia! ew.
http://english.farsnews.com/ne...

Houttuynia ... hmmm ... at least they warn you that it's an acquired taste!

I was disappointed this year about how few chickweed were around! We just didn't seem to get any substantial rain this winter!

Okay, so when I was weeding yesterday I tried some. Pretty mild, but nothing to write home about.